Reservation Road
Posted on April 7, 2008 at 10:13 pm
We’ve all done it. We know we shouldn’t. We know it is dangerous. Dwight (Mark Ruffalo) is racing to get his 10-year-old son home after a ball game went into extra innings. He is talking on the cell phone to the boy’s annoyed and anxious mother. And he is going too fast around the curve, just as his son slips out of his seatbelt to change the channel on the radio. Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) has a 10-year-old son who is standing too near the edge of the road, freeing some fireflies from a jar.
And the unthinkable happens. A sickening thud. The driver’s son hits his head on the dashboard. And the car keeps going. The father speeds away, in shock and denial, seeing to his boy’s bruises and still trying to get him home on time, desperately, irrationally, magically thinking that maybe if his boy is safe, the other one will be, too.
But he is not. As Luke Arno (Eddie Alderson) is being returned to his mother, holding a bag of frozen peas to his swelling eye, the other boy’s mother and sister are huddled in the back of a police car, shattered by grief.
: The Shaping of Our Mythic Tradition — an exploration of the psychology, history and biology of myth, and an introduction to the Western mythos.
: The Shaping of the Eastern Tradition –an introduction to the great mythic traditions of South and East Asia
Charlton Heston, who died this morning at age 84, had the screen presence for larger than life, heroic roles, and often appeared in films with religious themes. He will be best remembered for his Oscar-winning performance as 
and for appearing as Moses in 
. He also played John the Baptist in 
. Heston created audio recordings of 
and provided voice talent for a series of animated Bible stories for children. 
as a policeman who lives on the border, literally and metaphorically, and in a rare romantic comedy, “The Private War of Major Benson.” Whether he was leading a circus (
) or a stranded team of astronauts (
) or even trying to survive as the last man on earth (
), his conviction and commitment made him the essence of a movie star.
Like the 1925 ragtag professional football team it follows, this movie has more high spirits than ability to deliver. 
), who is not only a football hero but a real American WWI hero as well. Carter agrees to leave school because Dodge guarantees him a ton of money and because he is very happy to have a chance to keep playing. He is guided on this by his agent, CC Frazier (suitably, if silkily, satanic Jonathan Pryce), a character who raises the intriguing 
-ish question of whether pro sports would have been created without pressure from pro agents.